The American Missionary

THE

American Missionary.

AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

We devote the greater part of this number of the
Missionary to the Indian problem. Communications will be
found from Capt. Pratt, Gen. Armstrong, Hon. Carl Schurz and Prof.
Riggs. These gentlemen have made the condition of the Indian a
study for some years, and, by experience in public service, in the
army, and by educational and religious endeavors, have had rare
opportunities to test their theories and principles by practical
efforts in behalf of the Indians. We know of no men more competent
to speak on the subject or more worthy of the confidence of the
public. Statistics relating to our Indian work, including that
recently transferred to us by the American Board, are given. As we
now are charged with the entire work done by the Congregationalists
for the American aborigines, we trust we shall have the prayers and
help needful for doing it efficiently.

FINANCIAL.

Our receipts show a falling off. Five months of the fiscal year
are ended, and the receipts from donations are $20,774.39 less
than for the corresponding months of last year; from legacies
only $17,471.44 more. The decrease is in the contributions of
living donors, and upon these rather than upon legacies, which
are fluctuating and uncertain, must the Association rely for its
regular support. Its work was never more successful or needed.
The kind of schools and churches it establishes, and the preachers
and teachers it sends forth, are becoming more fully appreciated.
We are urgently invited to enter new and unusually promising
openings for an enlarged church work. The valuable service rendered
by our increased corps of lady missionaries makes a strong demand
for large additions to their number. The Indian work received by
the Association from the American Board will add about $20,000
to the expenditures of the year, without the enlargement which
it so greatly needs. The Chinese[98] work makes a strong appeal for
additional accommodations for the increasing number of pupils in
the schools.

Without an increase of receipts, or the creation of a debt,
the Association cannot enlarge its work, or even sustain it in
its present condition. Our Executive Committee feel themselves
pledged against a debt by their promises to the public and by
their own deep convictions of duty. But they confidently believe
that the conscientious donors who have stood by the Association
so faithfully in the past will promptly render such efficient
assistance as will not only save it from debt or curtailment, but
will authorize enlargement.

MUST HAVES.

The following “must haves” sent us in a private letter from
President Ware, of Atlanta, illustrate the urgency of the appeals
that constantly come to us from our different workers South.
Mr. Ware says: “We must have buildings; we must have endowments
for running expenses; we must or go to the wall; we must have
building for grade B; for model school building, $8,000; we must
have cottage in girls’ lot for housekeeping instruction, $5,000;
we must have new hall for girls, $25,000, that will give room for
100 girls; we must have shop for industries, carpenter, etc., and
endowment for support of man in that department, about $50,000 for
both;” a batch, it will be seen, of $88,000, with no estimate of
the amount needed for general endowment. We believe that it has
been found so far by those who have put their money into Atlanta
University that it has yielded “some thirty, some sixty, and some
an hundred fold.” The stock is not all taken. We invite investors
to examine the “points” in this venture, and trust that the merits
of the security will warrant a speedy absorption of the entire
amount called for.

We are cheered by many kind words relating to the American
Missionary, and believe that those interested in the nation’s
welfare, and especially in the redemption of the South, find in
it much to encourage them to hope and to give in behalf of the
people for whom we labor. Nothing, however, gives more evidence
of appreciation than the steady response to our appeals for paid
subscriptions. So far this year these have been very gratifying.
The price is fifty cents, and we hope there will be no abatement
of interest on the part of our friends in helping us place the
magazine on a paying basis.

In the list of the teachers at Hampton, as reported in the February
Missionary, the name of Miss Waldron should have been put as Miss
M. M. Waldron, M.D., School Physician.

[99]

DEATH OF MRS. G. S. POPE.

After an illness of ten days, terminating in malarial pneumonia,
Mrs. Pope died Feb. 2, at Tougaloo University, Tougaloo, Miss. For
the past fifteen years she had been engaged in missionary work
under the A. M. A., laboring in Montgomery, Louisville, Selma,
Talladega and Tougaloo. Mrs. Pope brought into her work rare
qualities of mind and heart. Her good judgment, her readiness in
emergencies and her kindly interest in every one was an inspiration
to all. Her death will be sorely felt, not only by her husband and
two little boys, but by the large corps of workers, and the pupils
with whom she has been associated for so many years.

The conventions held in Connecticut by the Congregational
benevolent societies during February were well attended. One
hundred and eleven churches were invited and eighty-eight
represented. The meetings for April will be held in the following
order: Tuesday, the 3d, Thomaston, morning and afternoon;
Wednesday, the 4th, Waterbury, 2d church, morning and afternoon;
Thursday, the 5th, New Britain, afternoon and evening; Tuesday,
the 10th, New Haven, Davenport Church, afternoon and evening;
Wednesday, the 11th, Rockville, 1st church, morning and afternoon;
Thursday, the 12th, Putnam, morning and afternoon; Tuesday,
the 17th, Norfolk, morning and afternoon; Wednesday, the 18th,
Torrington, 3d church, morning and afternoon; Thursday, the
19th, West Winsted, morning and afternoon; Tuesday, the 24th,
Danielsonville, morning and afternoon; Wednesday, the 25th,
Norwich, 2d church, morning and afternoon; Thursday, the 26th, New
London, 1st church, morning and afternoon; Friday, the 27th, New
Haven, Fair Haven, 1st church, morning and afternoon.

“Sermons and Speeches,” by Rev. Atticus G. Haygood, D.D.,
is the title of a neat volume issued by the Southern Methodist
Publishing House, Nashville. It contains 428 pages, and is offered
at the low price of $1.25. The sermon likely to attract the most
attention is on “The New South, Gratitude, Amendment, Hope.” It was
preached on Thanksgiving Day, 1880, and circulated extensively in
pamphlet form. “A Christian Citizen,” another sermon, is perhaps of
equal merit, and especially pertinent to the condition of affairs
South. The addresses of special interest to the general reader
relate to “The Negro—A Citizen” and “The New South from a Southern
Standpoint.” These addresses are comprehensive, catholic and kindly
in spirit. Dr. Haygood convinces his readers of his sincerity, and
charms them by the vigor and freshness of his style. Every word he
utters indicates his purpose to do good. The circulation of these
sermons and speeches will do much to create better feeling between
well-disposed people North and South. We wish the book the success
it merits.

[100]

Pursuant to the action taken at our last Annual Meeting relating
to a petition requesting a report on the policy of the Association
in regard to race or color prejudice in the support of schools or
churches, our Executive Committee, to whom the matter was referred,
have passed the following minutes.

I. That in accordance with the New Testament doctrine upon which
the Association was founded, and by which it has from the beginning
been governed, that God has made of one blood all the nations of
men, we reiterate the rule, which we believe that fidelity to
Christ requires, that all our churches and schools shall open their
doors impartially to persons of every class, race and color.

II. That in obedience to the same New Testament doctrine, we shall
require that all churches aided by us shall unite with neighboring
churches of the same faith and order in Christian fellowship in
the same conferences or associations, and in other usual means of
fraternity and fellowship, making no distinctions on account of
race or color.

III. That this Association will not enter upon any new church work
in any city or town where the American Home Missionary Society has
already established a church work, without previous conference with
the officers of its sister Society.

Minutes similar in purport to the above have been passed by the
Home Missionary Society.

BENEFACTIONS.

Mr. William Backnell, of Philadelphia, has given $60,000 to the
University of Lewisburg, Pa., for endowment purposes.

Westminster College is to receive $2,000 from the estate of Miss
Jane A. Thompson, of Missouri.

The late Mr. Samuel Willets gave $100,000 to Swarthmore College, a
Quaker institution, near Philadelphia.

Dartmouth College is to receive $50,000 from the estate of the late
George T. Wilson, of Providence, R.I.

It is reported that Wm. H. Vanderbilt has recently given $100,000
to Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tenn.

Mrs. Mary Young has given $500,000 to Fall River, Mass., for the
establishment of a school of high rank. The gift is made in memory
of an only son.

Washburn College received a Christmas gift of $1,000 from Mrs.
Emily G. Williston, of East Hampton, Mass., and a New Year’s
offering of $1,000 from Hon. Wm. Hyde, of Ware, Mass.

By the will of the late Wm. E. Dodge, of New York, the Syrian
Protestant College is to receive $20,000; Lincoln University,
$10,000;[101] Howard University, Atlanta University and Hampton
Institute, $5,000 each.

Miss Baxter has given $50,000 to provide a laboratory for a college
at Dundee, Scotland, which was founded by herself and her cousin,
Dr. Baxter, some years ago, at an expense of $750,000.

Mrs. Adeline Smith, of Oak Park, Ill., recently gave $11,000 for
the founding of a Philander Smith chair in the University of Little
Rock, Ark., to be a perpetual memorial of her husband, who died
about a year ago.

Permanent endowments are needed in order that the institutions of
the American Missionary Association may achieve that larger success
which is rightly expected of them. Every consideration of the past,
of the present and of the future, enforces the demand that these
endowments should be provided at once.

GENERAL NOTES.

AFRICA.

—The German Reichstag has voted an appropriation of one million
marks to defray the expenses of an expedition now being fitted out
for the exploration of Central Africa.

—The Church Missionary Society have received tidings from their
Uganda Mission at Mtesa’s capital that five young men have been
baptized, the first fruits of the mission.

—Notwithstanding the presence of General Matthews with the troops
of the Sultan of Zanzibar, a brisk trade in slaves is going on at
Mombassa. General Matthews is now fighting with a rebel chieftain
who has a settlement not far from Mombassa where he receives
runaway slaves.

—The Church Missionary Society of England is about to begin
missionary operations in Egypt. It is to be under the care of Rev.
F. A. Klein, an able Arabic scholar. The same society had a station
at Cairo in the beginning of this century, but abandoned it in 1824.

—The English Baptists have established a station at Stanley Pool.
The new missionary ship “Peace” is now ready to be shipped to the
Congo. Mr. Stanley is about to publish an account of the results of
his explorations. The French government has recently appropriated
about $300,000 to defray the expenses of De Brassa’s expedition.

—The famous work of Miss Whately, daughter of Archbishop Whately,
who for years carried on her work at Cairo, at her own charges,
is a very interesting branch of Egyptian missions. The Khedive
presented Miss Whately with land for her buildings, and her Cairo
schools number 300 boys and 200 girls, more than two-thirds of the
girls and half the boys being Moslems. She has a branch school of
ninety pupils at Damietta.

[102]

THE CHINESE.

—There are now between three and four hundred Christian schools in
China, containing over six thousand pupils.

—It is pointed out as a significant fact that the missions
in Japan, which have been so prosperous, were started by a
contribution sent by Christian converts of the Hawaiian Islands.

—There are in New York City and vicinity 500 Chinese laundries,
managed by about 2,000 Chinamen. No foreigners are more
industrious, more peaceable, or more anxious to conform to the laws
of the land. None are so reliable in their business arrangements or
so desirous for instruction in mission schools.

—There are at present in connection with Protestant missions
in China more than 600 stations and out stations; more than 300
organized churches, a goodly number of them self-supporting, and
some 20,000 communicants.

THE INDIANS.

WORK TRANSFERRED BY THE AMERICAN BOARD.

By vote of the Prudential Committee of the American Board, the
entire Dakota Mission was transferred to the American Missionary
Association, to take effect Jan. 1, 1883. We give the statistics
of the Mission as published in the last Annual Report of the
Board. But some of the churches in the list (especially those at
the Sisseton Agency) are reported as having transferred themselves
to the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, prior to Jan. 1,
1883. When the Prudential Committee of the American Board and the
officers of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions have decided
the questions on this subject, which seem to be at issue between
them, we will correct the list accordingly, if any change shall be
found necessary.

Fort Berthold (Dakota Territory).—Chas. L. Hall, Missionary;
Miss Eda L. Ward, Miss Sophronia B. Pike, Assistant Missionaries.
One church at Devil’s Lake, sixteen members.

Fort Sully (Dakota Territory). Peoria Bottom.—Thomas L. Riggs,
Missionary; Miss Mary C. Collins, Miss Louisa M. Irvine,
Assistant Missionaries. One church, twenty-four members.

Cheyenne River.—Isaac Renville, Stephen Yellow Hawk, David Lee,
Native Pastors; Mrs. Renville, Samuel Hopkins, Mrs. Hopkins, Mrs.
Elizabeth Winyan, Native Teachers.

Santee Agency (Nebraska).—Alfred L. Riggs, Missionary; James
C. Robbins, Joseph H. Steer, Mrs. Mary B. Riggs, Mrs. Maria L.
Steer, Miss Martha M. Paddock, Miss Susan Webb, Miss Sarah L.
Voorhees, Miss Harriet B. Ilsley, Assistant Missionaries; Miss[103]
Harriet A. Brown, Miss Lizzie Glisan, Miss ——, Teachers;
Artemas Ehnamini, Native Pastor; Eli Abraham. Native Teacher;
John Cetanmani, Dennis Mazaadidi, James Brown, James Redwing,
Catechists. One church, one hundred and seventy members.

Sisseton Agency (Dakota Territory).—Stephen R. Riggs, LL.D.,
Missionary; W. K. Morris, Mrs. Annie B. Riggs, Mrs. Martha Riggs
Morris, Assistant Missionaries; Miss Thompson, Mrs. John B.
Renville, Teachers; John B. Renville, Daniel Renville, Louis
Mazawakinyanna, David Greycloud, Joseph Iron Door, Charles R.
Crawford, Native Pastors. Six churches, four hundred and ten
members.

4 stations; 9 out-stations; 9 churches; 4 missionaries; 3 American
male assistant missionaries; 12 female assistant missionaries; 5
other teachers; 10 native pastors; 9 native teachers and catechists.

We add the statistics of the Indian work as sustained by the
Association during the past year.

S’Kokomish Agency (Washington Territory).—Rev. Myron Eells,
Missionary.

Spokan Falls (Washington Territory).—Rev. H. T. Cowley,
Missionary.

Leech Lake Agency (Minnesota).—Rev. S. G. Wright, Teacher.

Hampton (Virginia).—Miss Isabel B. Eustis, Teacher; and
appropriation in aid of Indian students.

SUGGESTIONS OF ENLARGEMENT.

We believe that those who read in this number of the Missionary the
communications from Capt. Pratt, Gen. Armstrong and Prof. Riggs
may ask with good reason, Why not develop at Santee an industrial
school for the Indians, of like character to those at Hampton
and Carlisle? Already fair beginnings have been made. As will be
seen by a cut published herewith, we have good grounds, several
attractive and suitable buildings, with other improvements. By
an examination of a map with reference to the location of the
different Indian tribes, it will be found that Santee is accessible
to seven tribes, numbering over twenty thousand souls. The railroad
systems of the vicinity are such that no great difficulty or
expense would be experienced in bringing students together. The
tribes speaking the Dakota language number more than those speaking
any other Indian dialect on the continent. The churches already
established among them, with a membership of 847, are in full
sympathy with the Santee school. No difficulty is likely to come
from a lack of students, as already the institution has during the
present year been obliged to turn them away for want of room.

[104]

SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.

[105]

Mr. Thomas L. Riggs, who collected a company of Indian youth for
Gen. Armstrong’s school last autumn, reports that he could have
secured several times as many, if he had been seeking students for
Santee. The variety of industries that it would be desirable to
promote would be limited only by the wants of the people in a new
country. Carpentering, blacksmithing, shoemaking, broommaking and
basketmaking, are trades that well might receive early attention.
It would be no part of the plan to interfere with the religious or
normal school work by the more general introduction of industrial
training. We believe that Christian nurture is promoted rather
than retarded by attention to industrial pursuits among students,
when wise oversight is given for the sake of useful achievements.
The plan of locating the students in cottages, so that each home
may have a quiet and healthful influence upon the untutored youth
from wigwam life, is already inaugurated, and can be extended to
meet all emergencies. The land at the agency is controlled by the
government, but no difficulty is anticipated in securing all that
may be needed for the use of the school. Scholarships may also be
had in numbers and amount sufficient to warrant preparations on a
large scale for a first grade normal and industrial institute. It
is the purpose of this Association to weigh carefully the above
considerations, and if found practicable, to develop at an early
day a training school in Nebraska that shall be equal in its
facilities and enterprises to the demands of the new era in the
progress of Indian civilization.

ASPECTS OF THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

BY HON. CARL SCHURZ.

The increased interest of public-spirited citizens in the education
of Indian children is one of the best, if not the best result,
of recent discussions of the Indian question. The success of the
schools at Hampton, in Virginia, Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, and
Forest Grove, in Oregon, have amply demonstrated what can be
accomplished if such schools be organized on the right principle
and conducted with ability and energy. That this is more and more
generally appreciated is all the more fortunate, as the Indian
question is no longer one the solution of which can be trusted to
time.

As the progress of settlement and enterprise in the far western
regions, or, as it is called in a general way, “the development
of the country,” advances, the old methods of providing for the
Indians become obsolete. Large reservations of wild land, on
which the Indian can freely roam and support himself, partly by
hunting, will soon be things of the past. Even now an “Indian
frontier” does no longer exist. The abiding places of the
Indians are almost everywhere surrounded by rapidly increasing
populations of white men eagerly pressing upon the Indian lands.
One reservation after another is broken up to make room for new
lines of communication and for agricultural and mining enterprises.
However conscientious the government may be in its intention and
endeavor to protect the rights of the Indians at all points, it
is evident that the Indians will[106] soon, in every part of the
country, be interspersed with an aggressive force, constantly
growing in volume and power, which will threaten to overwhelm them
like a rising flood. Their circumstances are essentially changed.
The alternative of civilization or extermination is immediately
before them—civilization enabling them to become in all important
respects a part of the population among which they are to live; or
extermination in a vain struggle to maintain the habits of savage
life against the progress of superior forces, or rapid decay as
miserable paupers and outcasts by the failure of self-sustaining
ability. This alternative presents itself not as a question looming
up in the distant future, to be solved by coming generations, but
as a question involving the existence of the young generation of
Indians now living. It is, in one word, a question of immediate
urgency.

If the Indians are to live at all, they must learn to live like
white men. They can no longer stand in the way of the development
of the country, but they must be enabled to become part of that
development, and thus to be benefited by it. The “white man’s
way” of which they are in the habit of speaking, must not, as
heretofore, remain to them a mere vague, shadowy idea, but they
must acquire a practical conception of what the white man’s way
really is, what its objects are, and by what means those objects
are attained. They must acquire that conception soon, for they will
need it soon. The education of the young generation of Indians
is therefore an immediately pressing necessity. And it must be
an education that takes them out of their traditional ways of
thinking, out of their old ambitions and habits of life. They must
not only learn some reading and writing, but they must learn what
reading and writing is for in the practical competitions of human
existence. They must learn how to work and how to make their work
useful. They must learn to love work by seeing and appreciating the
fruits of it. Industrial training of a thoroughly practical kind
must therefore go hand-in-hand with the ordinary rudimentary school
education. The two things must be carried on with constant regard
to the unity of aim.

The schools at Hampton, Carlisle and Forest Grove are conducted
upon this principle, and the results attained there prove that
Indian youths can be taught the things required to provide for the
necessities of life and to lift the Indian above the state of the
pauper as well as of the savage. Of course we must not expect too
much of them. We must not expect that they will issue from these
schools as model men and model women in every respect. We must not
expect that on the average they will be better than the average of
white boys and girls, raised under the same circumstances and with
the same advantages or disadvantages, would be. In point of fact,
the reports about the young men and women who, after having gone
through their three years’ term at Hampton or Carlisle,[107] returned
to their people in the western country, have been as different as
reports would be about white boys and girls similarly situated.
Some were bright, active and industrious, others dull and indolent.
But a large majority of them have been doing well and showed a
marked superiority in character, ambition and conduct over other
young Indians who had not enjoyed the same kind of education. There
is no doubt that their presence among their people as teachers
and examples and as a moving force generally will exercise a most
healthy and elevating influence, provided the number of Indians so
educated be large enough to make them among the rising generation
the rule, instead of their remaining exceptional cases, as they now
are. It is, therefore, essential that such schools and the number
of pupils in them be multiplied as much as possible.

The schools at Hampton and Carlisle are mentioned here in
preference to the schools established at the different agencies,
partly because the former are superior as to the force of teachers
employed there, as well as to their equipment in other respects,
and partly because they offer to their Indian pupils the peculiar
advantage of withdrawing them entirely from the savage influences
of the Indian camps and placing them under the immediate influence
of civilized surroundings, where they can learn the “white
man’s way,” by seeing civilization at work. But as this method
of educating young Indians is expensive, and Congress rather
parsimonious as to appropriations for such purposes, the number of
Indians profiting from it is necessarily very small in proportion
to the whole population, while it ought to be very large. The
establishment of an Indian school on the same plan near the Santee
agency in Nebraska, as contemplated by the American Missionary
Association, is therefore all the more to be welcomed. Although the
surroundings of that school will not be quite as civilized as those
of Hampton and Carlisle, yet the Santee reservation is at least on
all sides easily accessible to civilized influences. It is a small
tract, encircled by settlements of white people. At the same time,
a school established there will be able to draw its pupils from the
great Sioux reserve in Dakota at small cost, the distance being
inconsiderable and the means of communication cheap and convenient.
The American Missionary Association could scarcely render a more
valuable service to the Indian race or do more credit to its own
good judgment and benevolent impulses than by making so valuable an
addition to the educational forces among the red men.

—A difficulty in prosecuting the work among the Indians in British
Columbia is found in the fact that the tribes speak distinct
languages. Not less than seven different dialects are used in the
range of country embraced by missionary effort.

[108]

ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF WORK AT CARLISLE.

BY CAPT. R. H. PRATT.

In compliance with your request I herewith furnish you with a brief
history of the Carlisle School, and some account of its industrial
features. It originated in the sending to Florida from the Indian
Territory of 74 Indian prisoners in the spring of 1875. At the
instance of General Sheridan I was selected by the War Department
and placed in charge of those prisoners, they having been under my
care at Fort Sill. They were from the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Kiowa
and Comanche tribes and were selected for this banishment because
of well-known offenses against the peace of the frontier. Some
of them were guilty of the most outrageous crimes. Years of army
service among the Indians and observation of their treatment had
led me to change my views for opinions in favor of giving to the
Indian a broader chance and a desire that he might be brought more
in contact with the peaceful and industrious side of civilized
life, and so before the prisoners were started from Fort Sill I
wrote to my superiors urging that they be educated and trained
industrially during their imprisonment. Soon after reaching St.
Augustine I wrote repeatedly to the War Department urging that
some locality with more industrial surroundings be selected and
the prisoners be transferred. This was denied, and I then set
to work to make the best use of the elements to be found in the
sleepy old Spanish town. With no means, I was forced to seek the
co-operation of charitable and missionary folks. Miss S. A. Mather,
Miss Perit, Mrs. King Gibbs, Mrs. Couper Gibbs, of St. Augustine,
and Mrs. Dr. Caruthers of Tarrytown, N.Y., winter resident of St.
Augustine, volunteered to teach and did teach the classes of those
grown Indian men for two years and a half, giving them about one
hour’s instruction daily. Industrially there was little practical
opportunity, but numbers were placed for different periods to work
on saw mills, at picking oranges, as hostlers, grubbing the land,
boating and whatever could be found in connection with their own
necessities and comfort in the old fort. Twice we boated pine
logs from a distance and constructed log houses within the fort,
riving the clap-boards, building stick chimneys, chinking and
daubing that they might learn to construct their own homes. Some
of them advanced rapidly in acquiring literary, English speaking
and industrial knowledge. Others were very stupid. The greatest
success in the labor line was in placing five men to grub five
acres that had intimidated other laborers both white and black.
The undergrowth and roots to be removed were of the most dense and
appalling kind, and yet the Indians stuck to it until they had made
a complete success of it.

Another of the best evidences of the success of our labor efforts
was a petition signed by a very considerable number of laborers and
others of the community asking that I be estopped in the putting
of the Indians out to labor in competition with other classes, as
I was taking bread from the mouths of those who were dependent
upon such labor for their living, etc. In the spring of 1878 the
authorities at Washington determined to release the prisoners and
permit them to return to their homes. There were 22 of them who
preferred to remain East and get a better knowledge of civilized
life and more education before going home. The expenses of these
22 young men were undertaken by different charitable people. Gen.
S. C. Armstrong, of the Hampton Normal Institute, received 17 into
his institution, while four went to Paris Hill, near Utica, N.Y.,
under the immediate charge of Rev. J. B. Wickes, an Episcopal
clergyman, encouraged by Bishop Huntington, all the expenses being
undertaken by Mrs. Burnham. One was taken to Tarrytown, N.Y., in
Dr. Caruther’s own family.[109] Hampton Institute being an industrial
school, furnished the most seasonable and practical education of
any institution I was able to find. The remainder of the party were
returned to their respective agencies, and such was the effect of
their training in Florida during their three years’ absence, that
they at once became the best element for progress in their tribes.
At this time, while a few have gone back to the blanket condition,
most likely from necessity, because no other way was open to them,
there is abundant testimony in the reports of their respective
agents during the past four years that they are still a useful and
leading industrious element among their people.

A few weeks after the arrival of the party at Hampton Institute,
General Armstrong was so favorably impressed by the conduct and
progress of the 17 he had undertaken, that he was willing to
increase the number by adding 50 more, and including girls. Mr.
Schurz and Mr. McCrary, then Secretaries of the Interior and War
Departments, accepted the proposition, and I was sent, in the fall
of 1878, to Dakota, and brought away 49 children from six different
agencies of the Sioux, Gros Ventre, Mandan and Arickeree tribes.
These, together with the former Florida prisoners, were placed
under training in all the varied systems of literary and industrial
pursuits. Hampton Institute provides liberally for its colored
students, and side by side with those colored pupils the Indian
boys and girls, in perfect harmony with the new life, demonstrated
their capacity to hold their own in improving the best of chances.
It was very much desired by the friends of this new movement, and
particularly General Armstrong, that I should remain with it, and a
clause was introduced in the army appropriation bill, which passed
Congress in the spring of 1879, for the detail of one officer,
not above the rank of captain, for duty with reference to Indian
education.

It was a plan which I had urged for several years that to get the
best results in our educational work among Indian children as
many as possible should be removed from reservation and tribal
influences and placed in the atmosphere of civilized life, and
to this end I had urged the use of vacant military posts and
barracks as furnishing, without much cost in changing and improving
buildings, places to make a beginning, and I proposed to the
Interior and War Departments that I would undertake the education
of 250 or 300 children at the old military buildings at Carlisle.
This proposition was accepted, and after many preliminaries I was
sent in September, 1879, to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Agencies in
Dakota and brought away 84 children, and immediately after went to
the Indian Territory and from the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Pawnee and other
tribes brought 52 more. To these were added 11 from the Hampton
Institute of the young men who had been with me in Florida. The
school was opened on the first of November with 147 students. To
these were added from time to time children from various Western
tribes, and at the end of July, 1880, we numbered 239 children,
about one-third of whom were girls. At the end of the second
year, October, 1881, we had increased to 295. At the present
writing we number 379—132 girls and 247 boys. From the beginning
our principle has been to place the most emphasis on industrial
training, next English speaking and then literary training.
To accomplish the first we very early in the work established
shops for mechanical instruction in carpentry, blacksmithing,
wagon-making, harness-making, tailoring, tinsmithing, shoemaking,
printing, baking and on our farm of 115 acres gave some scope for
agricultural training. We have avoided theory in our industries and
adhered to practice, being governed to a great extent by the old
apprentice system. We have at the head of each branch a skilled
mechanic as practical instructor, and as nearly as possible we
pursue the methods of trades people in their instructions to[110]
apprentices. We give half of each day to work and the other half to
school, and have found that our progress is proportionately greater
in each than it would be if the attention was directed to either
the one or the other for the whole time. Under this system we have
in training as carpenters 13 boys; as wagon-makers and blacksmiths,
15; as harness-makers, 15; as shoemakers, 19; as tailors, 12;
as turners, 11; as printers, 5; as bakers, 3; and every boy not
engaged at some trade is required to work during the season upon
the farm. Such products of our labors as we are not able to make
use of for the school are purchased by the Indian Department and
shipped to agencies. We think our boys as forward in capacity
for receiving instruction on each of the several branches as the
average white boy. In the blacksmith shop our apprentice boys after
two years’ instruction, are able to iron a wagon, repair a plow,
shoe a horse, etc. In the wood-working department able to get out
all the different wood parts of the wagon ready for the blacksmith.
In the tin-smithing to construct coffee pots, buckets, pails,
pans, cups, etc. In the harness-making to cut out and manufacture
harness. In the tailoring to cut out and manufacture clothing. In
shoemaking to repair and manufacture boots and shoes. In printing
to set up and distribute type and make up forms. In baking we have
no other help than Indians. We give to our girls instruction in the
various industries of the sex and find no general lack. In cooking,
sewing, house work, laundry work, etc., they are apt pupils.

One of the most useful features of our work has been the placing of
our boys and girls in private families, principally among farmers,
where they perform the same kind of labor and are subjected to the
same home and labor influences that white children of their own
ages receive. This has the most beneficial results. The children
take on English speaking and the industries of civilized life very
speedily. During vacation we place out all we can spare from our
own work, and during the winter we allow a considerable number to
remain and attend the public schools in the several neighborhoods,
they being required to do such work mornings and evenings as they
are capable of and so pay for their board and clothes. By this
course we are enabled to carry a very considerable number more
pupils than we are allowed appropriation for. It is plain that the
real hindrance to Indian progress is found in their being kept
entirely separated from the other masses of our population, and
by every act of our government and every sentiment of its people,
societies, missionary and others, made to feel that they are a
separate people and must so remain forever. Through their education
in separate schools, their home life upon prison reservations with
their liberty of coming and going abridged to these reservations,
with all their aspirations and ambitions so limited, there can be
no healthy growth. To overcome these difficulties the Indian mind
and the mind of the public as well as Congress must be educated to
grant to them the enlarged privileges accorded to all other races.
The boy will never learn to swim until he goes into the water,
and the experiences of industrial life and civilized life through
its associations and competitions will determine for the Indian
and white the true status. We have had quite enough of the Sioux,
Cheyenne, Comanche, etc., as Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, etc. We can
end their existence among us as such separate people by a broad
and generous system of English education and training, which will
reach all the 50,000 children and in a very few years remove all
our trouble from them as a separate people and as separate tribes
among us, and instead of feeding clothing and caring for them from
year to year, put them in condition to feed clothe and care for
themselves. Our experiences in many individual cases in the[111] last
few years make it very evident that not only may we fit the Indian
to take care of himself in his own home, but may fit him to go and
come and abide in the land wherever he may choose, and so lose his
identity.

MANDAN HUT, DAKOTA.

THE HISTORY AND OUTLOOK OF THE INDIAN WORK TRANSFERRED TO THE A. M. A.

PROF. ALFRED L. RIGGS.

Just fifty years ago two Congregational young men from Connecticut,
the Messrs. Samuel and Gideon Pond, pressed on into the heart
of the then unknown continent to see what they could do for the
Indian. They landed at Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota, and
began their volunteer mission among an Eastern branch of the Dakota
or Sioux nation.

One year later the American Board sent out the Rev. Dr. Williamson
on a tour of exploration, and the next year after that a mission
was regularly established. The organized work gathered in the
volunteers, and, moreover, according to the fashion of the times,
Congregational relations disappeared and work was started on the
Presbyterian basis.

For years it was a slow, hard lift against the weight of heathenism
and pride of race. Nowhere is race pride stronger than among the
Indians. As is often the case, those who have least to be proud of
vaunt themselves the most. So, while the Indian has to acknowledge
that the white man is possessor of gifts that class him with the
gods (the Dakota name for white man being the same as that he
applies to his gods), and thus for the sake of his mysterious power
he fears him, yet personally he despises him as different from
himself and effeminate.

And heathenism! Some would have us believe that it did not exist;
that the Indian naturally was as good a Christian as need be. The
courtesy of the Indian perhaps leads to this deceptive view. He
will assent to everything you say rather[112] than be so impolite as
to contradict you. Then, too, his pantheism easily makes room for
another god. So the white man’s god soon had his banner set up at
their sacred rites together with the Stone god, the Day god, the
Night god, the Thunder god, and the god of the North.

But when Christ claims the whole of their worship, and belief
in him is seen to require the giving up of their other faiths,
and the casting away of their charms and incantations, then the
antagonism of the unregenerate heart breaks out here as everywhere.
And the magicians and “medicine men” are stirred up to bitter and
unremitting warfare as soon as they discover that their craft is in
danger.

As if here were not enough obstacles to meet, there comes in
the opposition begotten of the selfishness and dissoluteness of
unprincipled white men. For years the fur trade was almost as
much the enemy of missions as was the slave trade. The agents of
this great enterprise were bound to keep the Indians hunters and
trappers in order that their warehouses might be filled with furs.
The fur trade also controlled the government, and even to-day its
power is felt through laws made then for its benefit and that yet
remain on the statute book. Hence in its day the fur trade was
a foe to be dreaded, for it could exert its power in a thousand
secret ways. It could break up schools, scare people away from
religious meetings, and put a ban on the Christian teacher, if
content to leave him alive.

After thirty years of patient labor the reward seemed about
to come. Christianity was proving its power to disintegrate
heathenism, break down prejudice and survive the enmity of
unprincipled white men.

Then the outbreak and massacres of 1862 occurred, seemingly
sweeping everything away. It was the death-struggle of heathenism,
alarmed at the steady advance of Christianity. Other political
causes and conditions merely made this outbreak possible. And yet
what seemed annihilation was only multiplication and dissemination.
Again was fulfilled the Scripture: “They that were scattered abroad
went preaching the word.” And the conversion in the military
prisons of hundreds as it were in a day, is one of the notable
instances of the power of God’s spirit.

Twenty years ago the field of Christian missions among the Dakotas
was confined to a small section of the nation then dwelling in
a corner of Minnesota. But now the field extends over the great
Missouri valley and on northward toward the Saskatchawan in the
British Possessions.

The work whose beginnings we have noted, originally one under the
American Board, has since been divided. In 1871, at the time of
the general division of the missions of the American Board, that
part of the Dakota Mission immediately under the charge of the
venerable Dr. Williamson and his son, Rev. John P. Williamson,
was transferred to the care of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign
Missions. But the larger portion remained with the other veteran
of the mission, Rev. Stephen B. Riggs, under the care of the
American Board. And now with the year 1883 another transfer is
made to the American Missionary Association. But the five native
churches, with a membership of 340, that had meanwhile grown up
about Sisseton Agency are graduated from foreign missions into a
home mission connection, and so naturally pass under the care of
the Presbyterian Home Mission Board. It is not within the scope
of this short article to speak of the work accomplished by the
Episcopal Mission in the same field, which had its beginning
about thirty years later than the original Dakota Mission, and in
recent years has had very considerable success. Nor can we speak
particularly of the portion of our great field lying across the
British line, for though we have furnished the native laborers it
is not organically connected with us. But as for the rest of the
original mission, even though divided, it works as one. It has one
General Conference,[113] and in all its publications and matters of
common concern acts as one mission still.

The statistics of the Dakota Mission, as thus defined, show 7
stations, 6 ordained missionaries, 26 assistant missionaries, 13
churches, 12 native pastors and preachers, 9 native teachers, and
847 church members, contributing during the past year $779.83 for
their own missions among the heathen Indians, and $1,080.58 for
pastoral support and church expenses.

Of this there now passes directly to the care of the American
Missionary Association 5 stations, with also an interest in the
Native Missionary field at Devil’s Lake, 4 ordained missionaries,
21 assistant missionaries, 2 churches, Pilgrim Church at Santee
and Shiloh Church at the Sully Station, with 8 native preachers, 5
native teachers, and a church membership of 194.

As has been noticed, the organization of the work from the first
has been on the Presbyterian model, and thus the fruits of the
mission have mostly gone into the Presbyterian connection. The
church at the Fort Sully Station was an exception. It was organized
as a Congregational church. Nevertheless, this Presbyterian cast,
this whole native force, is to be considered as one, and will be
used by whichever denomination is ready to prosecute the work
most vigorously, for the denominationalism of these churches is
not of a radical type, as is instanced by the recent change of
ecclesiastical relations on the part of the Pilgrim Church at
Santee. This is the original mother church, but in order to come
into closer and more sympathetic relations with the churches that
support the Santee Training School, it voted cheerfully and almost
unanimously to leave Presbytery and become Congregational. Indeed
this is not hard for them to do, for Indians are naturally very
democratic.

In the work that may now be done for this people, Santee
Normal Training School must be an important factor. It has
vital relation to all these native churches, and it has a name
among the heathen communities. Its growth has been slow, for it
has taken time and work to instil the idea of a higher education
into the minds of the people. Henceforth its growth might be
rapid. It now has one hundred and one pupils in attendance, with
seventeen instructors, including those in charge of the industrial
and boarding departments. This winter a number of pupils have been
turned away for lack of room. If accommodations could be provided,
the number of pupils might soon be doubled.

While giving great attention to industrial training, it affords
unparalleled advantages for that training which is needed to make
teachers suited to Indian schools.

The school is the basis of evangelizing the Indian. There will be
no large audiences to preach to, except on exceptional occasions,
until the school has gathered a company of disciples. Certain
persons not understanding the nature of missionary work, or unable
to take more than a superficial view, have recently represented our
schools as of low grade, and unnecessary to real missionary work.
But this is contradicted by the grand progress of the work.

We have spoken of five mission stations as now passing under
the care of the A. M. A. But of these Standing Rock is hardly
opened, and Berthold and Sully stations are sadly in need of
reinforcements. And there are the large Indian Agencies of Spotted
Tail’s and Red Cloud’s tribes, numbering about 7,000 each, which
we ought to occupy. Then there is the Crow country in Montana,
next door to our Berthold Mission. We should have at once six
ordained missionaries and their wives, with as many more assistant
missionaries, all picked men. This would enable us to manage a yet
larger number of native missionary teachers working along with
them.

[114]

SISSETON GIRLS, WITH TEACHER.

The tribes speaking the Dakota language are the most numerous of
any Indian people upon the continent. They are now universally
open to Christianity and Christian civilization. They now look to
Christian people for their future. Within the last ten or twelve
years the whole temper of their mind has changed. The noted chief,
Sitting Bull, is an illustration. Only a few years ago he hated the
very wind that blew from the direction of the white man’s country.
When the wind blew from the east he would send out the town crier
to say, “Get you all into your teepees. This is bad air from the
white man’s country.” But when it blew from the north his crier
would proclaim, “Come out and breathe the healthy air.” And once
when a woman of the tribe brought home a “rooster” from a distant
trading post to enliven the tedium of her labor, Sitting Bull heard
it crow and[115] instantly dispatched his chief soldier to “soldier
kill” the woman, that is, cut up her tent and kill her horses, for
the crime of having that white man’s bird in the sacred precincts
of a Dakota camp. But now the same Sitting Bull is petitioning for
Christian teachers, and land, and domestic animals, and undoubtedly
would also welcome “the-bird-that-crows-in-the-morning.”

INDIAN INDUSTRIES AT HAMPTON.

BY GEN. S. C. ARMSTRONG.

Every Indian boy who comes to Hampton is allowed his choice to
learn farming or a trade, and to select the trade he prefers, to
which he is expected to stick. They often wish to change after some
months, for they are a fickle people. While this is by no means
done as a matter of course, it has sometimes been found wise to do
so. A boy who could do nothing at blacksmithing made remarkable
progress in the wheelwright’s shop; one who is poor on the farm may
be good in the shoe-shop, and vice versa; but it does not do to
encourage shifting trades. The girls go through the same routine of
housework, cooking, cutting and making and mending clothes.

The boys are assigned to work as follows: carpenters, 15; painters,
1; tinsmiths, 6; shoe-makers, 13; harness-makers, 3; farmers, 13;
blacksmiths, 3; wheelwrights, 3; tailors, 1. A generous lady in New
York City has recently given $5,000 for an Indian workshop, which
will be completed and occupied by the first of April next, and be a
most satisfactory change from the shed in which they have for four
years uncomfortably worked at their trades.

Considering the past of the Indian, the disposition of our boys
and girls to work is remarkable. The general rule is to work from
seven to twelve o’clock, A.M., or from one to six o’clock,
P.M., Saturday being holiday. Those who work mornings
study afternoons, and vice versa. All are paid, girls as well as
boys, usually at the rate of $2.50 per month, for to expect Indians
to take a real interest in their work without some compensation is
absurd. It is weak and foolish to reason that the skill they attain
is enough compensation. Human nature requires something more. On
the other hand they purchase all their underclothing and shoes with
their earnings, and are thus taught the use of money and the true
value of garments, and become quite skillful in buying. A school
uniform is provided for each one, made in our tailoring department.

Their appreciation of work is a direct contradiction to the
statement that an Indian hates to labor. Frequently boys who are
working a half-day at some trade will ask to be allowed to work the
entire day, including Saturday, so as to earn more and be better
able to take care of themselves when they go home. Their wages are
then increased and they go to night school. Every such application
is encouraging.

Especially those who make extra time in the shops are inclined to
save. They generally agree to draw but one-half of extra earnings,
the other half being saved to buy them tools and other outfit when
they shall finally leave school. We allow ten per cent. interest
on all such savings; they are quick to see the advantage of laying
up money. They seem to have no marked aptitude for special trades,
unless it be for work in leather, shoe and harness-making. Their
ancestors have dealt in this commodity more than in any other. They
take to all handiwork remarkably; while quick to learn, they are
slow to execute. They seldom bungle or “botch” a job. The first
pair of shoes made by an apprentice is always serviceable. An
Indian carpenter will make as good a mortise as a white one, but
will take three times as long. Our expert harness-maker says he can
do no better[116] work than some of his boys, but they are very slow
about it. We are constantly making and selling carts made by Sioux
boys. They have made all our school benches, desks, wardrobes and
wash-stands, besides window-frames, etc., for the outside market.

We would be only too glad to make buggy or plow harness, single
or double, tin-ware of all kinds and brogan shoes for individuals
or institutions in the North or South, solely on the ground of
the merit and cheapness of the work done. A neat carriage harness
was made last summer for a lady in Newport, R.I. Of the 500 dozen
articles of tinware, 75 sets of double plow harness, and 2,000
pairs of men’s shoes made last year by our Indian boys for the
use of the Western tribes (ordered by the Indian Department at
the lowest contract prices of the previous year) the New York
inspectors reported: “They are as well and as strongly made, and
for actual service fully equal to any purchased by the Department.”

This year we are making an even larger amount of material for the
Indian Department, but at prices which little more than cover cost
of material. An outside private trade would be much more desirable.
We were paid for men’s brogans “extra” good leather, $1.22½ per
pair, boxed and delivered in New York City. Carlisle does even more
than Hampton in supplying Indians, and with excellent success.

Owing to bodily ailments, Indian labor is more unsteady than that
of Negroes. While in their own life they have endurance, a steady
routine of industry is new to them, and they are for our purposes
a rather feeble race: they find digging exhausting, but on the
hunter’s trail or on the warpath they are tireless when we would
soon be weary.

Unless every Indian child is educated to some occupation, teaching
is of little account. Hard work rather than the higher studies
gives them the best drill. As for all, so for Indians, home
influence is a great thing. After the best practical education they
are not fit for the loose, idle, dirty life of Indian camps any
more than any other children. What is to be done? The best success
with the thirty Sioux children who returned in October, 1881, to
their agencies (five of them girls) has been with those to whom the
agents gave separate rooms near the agencies, having their food
cooked and their life led separately. An efficient agent will, by
the care he takes, save four-fifths of our Indian graduates to
decent lives; a careless, weak agent (and not a third of the sixty
U.S. Indian Agents are first-class men) will lose four-fifths of
them. We cannot make men of them in three years, but can give them
a start in that time that a good agent can keep up, and lead them
to true success.

Here, more and more, we find the real trouble; not with the Indian,
but in our miserable system of paying so small salaries to Indian
agents that a competent one is the exception. The boy or girl
who goes home finds no strong, kind friend to advise and help;
the current of influence is against a Christian life. Here the
missionary is needed; never more than now.

Hampton, Carlisle and the many schools that are educating Indians
need to be supplemented by good agents and wise missionaries who
will help them to stand against the odds that would make the
new life they have chosen nest to impossible. Here is the point
of chief anxiety. Public sentiment must be felt at Washington
before it shall remove the chief stumbling-block to Indian
progress—poor agents. As Secretary Teller says in his last Report,
the Indians are chiefly on reservations, and must for the present
be treated there; to be gradually pushed upon lands of their own,
individually, by the efforts of wise men and the influence of
Christian education.

[117]

REVIVAL WORK AMONG INDIANS AT HAMPTON.

Miss Isabel B. Eustis, in giving an account of the revival meetings
at Hampton, writes as follows of the Indians:

Meanwhile at one end of the chapel there sat a company of one
hundred who took no part in the service. The Indian students
watched with wondering and wistful eyes the scenes around them.
“Pass me not, O Gentle Saviour,” they sang often in their own
services during these days, and the Lord heard their cry and turned
aside and called them too. Stago, our fiery little Apache boy,
heard his voice, and set hard to work to conquer his temper and
self-will. The quick-witted, ambitious, head-strong girl, whose
influence over the other scholars we dreaded, listened, and her
hard expression softened, and the stubborn will yielded, and with
gentleness and humility she met the daily requirements which had
often roused her rebellious spirit before. Shallow natures grew
earnest and proud, and we knew that there was one walking with the
Indian students too who could purify and inspire and help.

On Wednesday evening our senior Indian boy, of his own accord, left
his class and took his seat with the other Indian scholars. Waiting
his opportunity, he rose and called the attention of the school to
those who sat behind him. He reminded me of the darkness out of
which they had come, and of the dangers to which they must return.
He told us that they longed for a share in the blessing God was
giving the school, and asked our patience while they prayed to the
Father, and spoke of Him in a language we could not understand.

Kamnach rose first. Kamnach came to the school four years ago,
directly from his wild Indian life. His hair was uncut; he wore
Indian clothes; he had been always familiar with scenes of
bloodshed, and placed little value on human life. After three years
he went back to his home, a changed man we thought in appearance
and heart. But it was hard to stand among his savage comrades. He
plead to come back to school. He was a happy boy, when, less than
a year ago, he placed his foot again on Hampton soil. Poor boy! he
had yet to learn that always his worst temptations would come from
his own distorted heart. Some misunderstanding of his position as a
returned student, some distrust of those who were over him, and he
fell into passionate hatred, and was ready to commit a deliberate
and deadly crime. We thought his repentance would be quick and
deep, but not so. The first Sunday of the new year, the anniversary
of the day on which he confessed Christ, he had no heart to meet
the Lord, whose first command was to love and forgive. But the
passing Saviour’s voice reached him now. He stood before the
crowded school, and with the help of an interpreter acknowledged
his sin, and renewed his allegiance to the Saviour, and begged the
Indian students to follow the Lord Jesus, though they would find
many things in His religion hard to understand and difficult to do.

After Kamnach’s confession a Sioux boy made a prayer. He spoke in
another tongue, but more than one felt his heart was lifted to the
Father’s heart by the earnestness and pathos of the stranger’s
voice. Another tried to speak in broken English. Missing the
words he wanted to say, waiting and struggling for confession,
he acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Saviour of his soul. Our
hearts were knit together in love. We knew that we belonged to one
common family and nothing could separate from the love of Christ.
Evidently the son of God who came to save the lost finds nothing in
the Indian nature he cannot soften and subdue. Evidently the Indian
is able to place his confidence in such a Saviour and yield himself
in glad obedience to Him.

[118]

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

INDIAN HUT.

THE LITTLE INDIAN OF CLEAR LAKE.

ABRIDGED FROM GOSPEL IN ALL LANDS.

Did you ever see an Indian—a real, live Indian—in
bead-embroidered buck-skin coat and breeches, girded with a
curiously wrought wampum belt, shod with moccasins, his face
painted black and red, his hair bristling, like a porcupine’s back,
with a gay forest of feathers—as he dashed through the woods or
over the prairie, on a wild horse, or strode along proudly on
foot, with bow and arrows in his hands, and a large tomahawk and
scalping-knife in his girdle?

You have seen him in the pictures, at least, and thought him a fine
sight; and perhaps you felt in your heart that it must be fine to
live such a wild, daring life, hunting, fishing and roaming in the
woods and over the fields.

But all Indians are not like him. Tribes differ very much in their
character and habits. Besides, they are never quite so brave and
fine in real life as they are in pictures. Most of them are poor
miserable creatures; and if you should go into one of their wigwams
of sticks and barks, and see their naked bodies, filthy faces and
tangled hair, as they squat in the smoke and stench around a little
fire, on the bare earth, in the middle of the shanty, snatching at
poor food with dirty fingers, like a pack of ravenous wolves. I do
not believe you would think it very fine, ever after have the least
desire to live like an Indian.

The little boy of our story was born and lived on the shores of
Clear Lake, a fine sheet of water among the mountains, thirty or
forty miles north of Napo Valley.

Like all his mates, he was so short and thick that he seemed to
be about as broad as he was long. His skin was not copper-colored
like that of most other Indians, but black. His face was broad and
round, his lips thick and pouting, and his nose wide and flat.
His long coarse hair, all tangled and matted, dangled around his
high cheek-bones and above his naked shoulders, like the shaggy
mane of a Canadian pony, and half hid his coarse, brutal features:
a pair of small, round, dull eyes, like leaden bullets, made the
treacherous expression that slept in every line of his features
seem ten-fold more revolting.

His wigwam, or lodge, was nothing but a rude screen of bushes or
skins to break the force of the wind. You would not think it very
nice or comfortable, but he did, and could sleep just as well
there, or on the ground beside a large stone, or behind the stump
of a fallen[119] tree as you do on the softest feathers. But he never
slept two nights in the same place, for fear of being discovered by
an enemy and murdered.

It is a hard and cheerless life which those little Indian children
lead, as you can easily see, but the life of this little Indian was
especially so; for his father and mother had both been murdered,
and he had no friends to care for him any more kindly than they
would care for a dog; and even the Hias Tyee, or Big Chief of the
tribe, whose duty it was to see that this little waif on the stormy
sea of Indian life was provided for, thought only to get some
advantage out of him; and so, when he saw a white man camping one
day on the shores of the lake, he brought down the boy and offered
to sell him for ten dollars. It proved to be a kind, good-hearted
man, who saw that the little fellow was friendless and forlorn,
and so the bargain was soon closed, and he became servant to the
“pale-face” till he was twenty-one years old, on condition of
receiving his food and clothing.

On reaching home, the first thing, of course, was to clip off his
dangling locks, give him a thorough scrubbing with soap and brush,
and cover his black nakedness with decent clothing.

That afternoon, when the pigs were fed, he was found with his nose
in the trough eating sour milk with the animals as if he had been
one of them. At night nothing could persuade him to sleep in a room
or on a bed; and after dark, when the family had retired to rest,
he stole out of the house as slyly as a cat, and hid himself away
in the tall weeds beside the fence. Every night for many weeks he
did the same, and was so fearful of being murdered in his sleep
that he changed his nest every night, never daring to sleep twice
in the same spot.

His tongue was constantly telling lies, and he would steal
everything he fancied that came in his way. He seemed to have no
idea of right and wrong. He could not comprehend what such words as
love and duty and kindness meant. Fear was the only motive which
had the least influence in controlling him. Even the difference
between cleanliness and dirt was a thought too sublime and profound
for his understanding.

But he could believe in ghosts and haunting spirits of dead men,
like most other ignorant and barbarous people; and he thought they
lingered around every stump and tree, and followed him wherever he
went. He could hear them fluttering in the leaves, or rapping on
the limbs and trunks of the trees, or whispering in the wind. He
supposed they took possession of the bodies of men and animals, and
caused them to sing and dance, and do all sorts of silly tricks,
by a kind of inspiration. He had some notions of the Great Spirit,
it is true, but they were confused and indistinct, and had little
power over him, while a slavish fear of the inferior spirits and
other such ghostly nonsense tormented him night and day, and made
him a timid, miserable, degraded, creature.

Had you seen him in that condition you would have thought it
impossible to make anything good out of such a stupid little
animal. You would have said it was of no use to try to teach a
creature so brutal and superstitious anything about God and heaven,
and a higher life, or even about the decencies of civilized society.

But a kind lady took him under her care. She taught him to read and
write. She showed him the folly of believing in ghosts, and talking
with the spirits. She told him the story of Jesus, and made him
learn the ten commandments, and the precious words of the Saviour,
and explained to him how God made him, and fed, and clothed, and
kept him, day by day, and that he ought to love Him, and do right
in return for His kindness. She impressed him with the thought that
God is angry with wicked boys and girls every day, and that only[120]
the pure in heart, whose lives are good, can be happy on earth, or
go to heaven when they die.

At first he was stupid and stubborn, and unwilling to learn; but
after a little while his stolid face began to brighten, his dull
eyes sparkled with unusual interest, and he was more and more
attentive, till his coarse, animal features wore an entirely new
expression. One day he came in with a very serious look, and said
in an earnest tone:

“Mistress, oh me got bad heart! Ask Great Spirit to give me better
heart.”

He was told to ask for himself; and then the poor little child of
the Great Father went into his own room alone and shut the door,
and kneeled down beside the bed and prayed, oh! so earnestly, that
God would forgive his sins for Jesus’ sake, and take away his
wicked feelings, and show him how to be good. From that moment he
was a changed boy. His bad habits were all laid aside. He ceased
to be stupid and stubborn and inattentive. He told no more lies,
and pilfered no more. His face glowed with kindly feeling, as if a
ray from heaven were sleeping on it. His coarse features lost their
repulsive expression and became rather pleasant to see. I am sure
there was rejoicing in heaven that day over this little stray lamb
from the wilderness; and I do not doubt that when God gathers up
his jewels from the earth the poor Indian boy will be a precious
gem in the Saviour’s crown of glory.

RECEIPTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1883.

H. W. Hubbard, Treas.

56 Reade St., N.Y.

AIM AND WORK.

To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with
the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted
its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their
duties as citizens and Christians in America, and as missionaries
in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the
caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate
with the Government in its humane and Christian policy toward the
Indians.

STATISTICS FOR 1882.

Churches: In the South—In District of Columbia, 1;
Virginia, 1; North Carolina, 9; South Carolina, 2; Georgia, 14;
Kentucky, 7; Tennessee, 4; Alabama, 14; Kansas, 2; Arkansas, 1;
Louisiana, 17; Mississippi, 5; Texas, 6. Africa, 3. Among the
Indians, 2. Total, 88.

[124]

Institutions Founded, Fostered Or Sustained in the
South.—Chartered: Hampton, Va.; Berea, Ky.; Talladega,
Ala.; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Tougaloo, Miss.; New Orleans,
La., and Austin, Tex.—8. Graded or Normal Schools: Wilmington,
N.C.; Charleston, Greenwood, S.C.; Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Ga.;
Montgomery, Mobile, Athens, Selma, Ala.; Memphis, Tenn.—11. Other
Schools, 38. Total, 57.

Teachers, Missionaries and Assistants.—Among the
Freedmen, 336; among the Chinese, 31; among the Indians, 6; in
Africa, 16. Total, 389. Students.—In theology, 72; law,
38; in college course, 104; in other studies, 9,404. Total, 9,608.
Scholars taught by former pupils of our schools, estimated at
150,000. Indians under the care of the Association, 13,000.

WANTS.

1. A steady INCREASE of regular income to keep pace with
the growing work. This increase can only be reached by regular
and larger contributions from the churches, the feeble as well as
the strong.

2. Additional Buildings for our higher educational
institutions, to accommodate the increasing numbers of students;
Meeting Houses for the new churches we are organizing;
more Ministers, cultured and pious, for these churches.

3. Help for Young Men, to be educated as minsters here and
missionaries to Africa—a pressing want.